The Monsoon over the Barents Sea and Kara Sea

In the Arctic (mainly in its European sector) there is statistically detectable seasonal reversal wind pattern. The combination of seasonally warm (cold) land surfaces in arctic areas together with cool (cool) sea surface of Arctic seas not covered by ice is conducive to the formation of a monsoon like system. On the other hand, the predominance of the cyclonic regime during all seasons makes it difficult to answer the question of whether the Arctic region belongs to the monsoon type pattern. In this study, the monsoon features of atmospheric circulation over the Barents and Kara Seas were analysed. To extract specific monsoon signs, atmospheric circulation systems (separately for areas of each sea) were divided into ten weather types. Their appearance and statistics were compared with indicators of regional circulation. A significant part of intra-annual monsoon variability is associated with the configuration of such modes as the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Scandinavia teleconnection patterns. For example, during the winter season, the monsoon currents (from land to sea) occur only with a positive North Atlantic Oscillation index. With the prevalence of other modes of variability, the direction of the winds can be different, and the regular monsoon circulation pattern is changed by chaotic regime. In summer, northern streams (from sea to land) are realized on the western periphery of cyclones, regenerating and stabilizing over the Kara Sea. As for anomalies, the nature of the monsoons is manifested in the statistics of extreme winds even without selecting data on the regimes of variability. So, in winter, maximum speeds fall on the southern streams, and in the summer—on the northern ones. Large precipitation anomalies during all seasons, as one would expect, are encountered most often with the cyclonic type of circulation.

A user perspective on future cloud-based services for Big Earth data

Cloud-based services introduce a paradigm shift in how users access,process and analyse Big Earth data.A key challenge is to align the current state of how users access,process and analyse the data with trends and roadmaps large data organisations layout.In addition,due to the increased availability of open data,a more diverse user base wants to take advantage of Earth science data leading to new user requirements.We run a web-based survey among Big Earth data users to better understand the motivation to migrate to cloud-based services as well as the challenges and opportunities that might arise.Results show an overall interest in moving to cloud-based services but air an insufficient literacy in cloud systems and a lack of trust due to security concerns and opacity of emerging costs.These gaps demand efforts on three levels.First,cloud services shall be targeted at intermediate users instead of policy-and decision-makers and over-engineered systems with a high level of abstraction should be avoided.Second,more substantial capacity-building efforts are required to decrease the existing gap in cloud skills and uptake.Third,a cloud certification mechanism could help in building up overall trust in cloud-based services.